In the Age of Big Data, Why Are We Still Lacking Basic Insight Into Our Communities?

Today with a few taps, I could easily figure out how many skiers visited Bolton this past winter, how many flights Taylor Swift took this year, or how many Starbucks are within a mile of Barclays Center in Brooklyn. We have infinite access to every banal statistic imaginable.

So why then, when we look to the health, economic wellbeing, or the basic make up of our communities, does the data comes up short? Speaking to Meg Smith, former Director of Vermont Women's Fund, the gap was painfully clear.

"Up until now, no one could tell you how many of the 81,000+ businesses registered in Vermont were women-owned—that gendered data didn’t exist."

The Problem Of Invisible Data

When we don't have insight into the basic numbers about the landscape of our community, the holes in our social safety nets can widen or fray without us knowing. Governments and funders are unable to know where support is most needed, or where it's making a difference. Community leaders are charting a course without a compass.

In Vermont, a basic, powerful example of this is not knowing how many businesses in the state are owned by women. After COVID, did women-owned businesses close? And of these businesses, how secure are they? Do they have access to funding?

It felt like such an obvious gap, that we at Gametheory alongside the Vermont Women's Fund knew we had to change it. Why not count these businesses ourselves?

There's Power In Our Numbers

We started This Way Up! as an initiative to count as many women-owned businesses across the state as possible. Further, we wanted to know more than just that these businesses exist - we wanted to know their genuine lived experience. We collaboratively designed an interactive 10 minute survey that covered everything from location, size, revenue, to how these women defined success, and the critical barriers they face.

Most importantly, we designed this data to be a safe, anonymized, yet simultaneously transparent look into women entrepreneurship in the state so that anyone from legislators to community banks could use it to better serve our communities. Every time a business owner completed the survey, they were added to the map, and a live interactive report of all these women's experiences was updated. Stats like the number of women who were first and second generation immigrants, or the top reason most women started their business would shift in real time.

A Snapshot of The Findings

This was largely a grass-roots project. We had a tiny team, and went out in the community, boots on the ground, to get business owners to share their stories with us. Over the course of this campaign over 3,000 Vermonter Business Owners contributed. We learned critical insights including that:

• These women-owned businesses represent 2.4 Billion generated annually for Vermont's economy

• Only 16% had access to capital or bank loans when starting their business, while 53% reported worrying about finances as their top challenge.

• The top catalyst for starting a business as a woman in VT was loss of employment

• The Fallout of COVID-19 actually led to an upsurge in entrepreneurship within the state.

The Change Sparked By This Campaign

Over the almost 2 years that the survey ran, we were able to make big changes in our state. After seeing the dire need for capital for women business owners, the Vermont Women's Fund launched the "Rise and Thrive" grant, which raised close to $400,000 in funding for women owned businesses. This funding was critical especially in July of 2023 when Vermont experienced some of the worst flooding in its history, leading to widespread damage to local businesses.

This Way Up! still remains the most complete picture and data resource of women owned businesses in the state of Vermont, and continues to be relied on for legislative decisions and community resourcing decisions.

Communities Need Better Data

This story shows the power in community data, and how critical it is to overall community wellbeing. Yet the gap is growing, and our communities are bearing the costs. Without intentional collaboration between responsible tech organizations and local communities, leaders will not keep up with the needs of the community.

As I think back to embittered town hall debates about funding, or community divisions around zoning, I'm struck by how powerful it would be to ground these conversations in transparent, responsibly gathered data. One of the biggest divisions in community is the lack of clarity into where are communities are actually suffering, and what genuinely moves the needle.

We have the technology to change this available today, and I believe in the coming years this critical data gap will be bridged, even if community members have to do it themselves.